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Old April 17th, 2012, 02:52 PM   #1
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Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

Dear all,

I just returned from a productive week shooting interviews in front of greenscreen at the Tucson Consciousness Conference (much thanks to Bruce Schultz for his help!).

My previous stereo editing has been all native .m2ts files, cut in Vegas, but since I'm going ProRes for FCP on this one, my storage needs are mushrooming. I have 30 hours of interviews, X2 eyes, X2 cameras, and I want to make sure that I manage my data well.

What I'm curious about, is whether it will help to keep the left and right eyes on separate hard drives, so that the same drive doesn't have to access both files, at the same time? Has anyone tried this, and does it seem to help? And since I have 2 cameras, that will be multiclipped together, would it make sense to distribute the four eyes across as many drives? (Chances are, I'll need 4 @ 2TB drives anyway, to handle all this).

Thanks for your thoughts on this.
-matt faw
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Old April 18th, 2012, 11:45 AM   #2
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Re: Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

Matt, it depends on how you connect them to the computer. If you attach each of them directly to the motherboard, such as with SATA or eSATA cables, your computer should be able to read all of them at the same time, at least in theory, as it also depends on what other software is running in the background.

If you connect them through a USB port, you will probably not see any speed advantage and might even see a bit of a slowdown.

That said, nothing beats testing it yourself. Place four files on a drive, use them in your editing software, add some effects, of the kind you typically do, then render the project (to a different drive, so it does not affect your test). Time it.

Then place two of the files on one disk, two on another. Use them in the exact same way as before, i.e., same software, same effects, same length, etc. Render (to a separate drive, the same as before) and time.

Finally, place each file on a separate disk. Repeat the test. Render, time.

Naturally, you need to make the project long enough, so you can see any timing difference between the different test runs.
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Old April 18th, 2012, 02:36 PM   #3
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Re: Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

Thanks, Adam!

I have ordered 4 @ 2TB drives and an e-sata port multiplier, which all should get here sometime next week. I'll run the experiment, as you recommended, and report back with my results.
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Old April 19th, 2012, 08:20 AM   #4
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Re: Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

No, wait. A port multiplier will just connect them all to the same SATA port. You need to connect them directly to the motherboard, so each has its own SATA port.

Assuming you have spare SATA connectors on your motherboard, you can get a SATA-to-eSATA adapter that has cables which connect directly to the SATA ports on the motherboard and gives you eSATA connectors on the back of the computer. All it does is change the type of connector from SATA to eSATA, so, as far as your computer is concerned, the drives are “internal” even though they are outside the computer case in their own enclosures.

That gives you the highest speed possible. It also has a disadvantage in that you usually cannot hot swap the drives. Since the system thinks they are inside the computer, it does not think it necessary to allow to hot swap them. So you need to turn off (power down) the computer before plugging them in, boot up, use them, then power down before you disconnect the drives.
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Old April 19th, 2012, 10:52 AM   #5
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Re: Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

Thanks, Adam! When I did my google search for "e-sata port multiplier", most of the products that came up were designed for the technique you described. I don't know that much about the internal wiring, so I ignored them, and went for the hub-style external model.

I'm addressing the question to the friend who sold me my Hackintosh (which his brother built). Hopefully, he'll let me know soon what my motherboard is capable of, and I'll get back on google, to follow your advice.

Not only is this project enormous, but I figure I might as well set up the best possible stereo editing system, because I anticipate working in 3D for the foreseeable future. It'll also set up my computer as a good kit rental, if I end up cutting 3D for someone else.
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Old April 19th, 2012, 11:13 AM   #6
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Re: Left Eye and Right Eye onto separate Hard Drives?

Yes, consulting him sounds like a good idea, since he knows more about the system than any one of us here.
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